Silver lining

Writing honestly is for me a good way to face up to things that are going on. Although I know that for people reading this - especially those who know me - the things that I write can be alarming and concerning.

Given that I write about the negative that is going on, it feels only right that I write a bit about the positive as well. I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea and to think that my life at the moment is an endless string of self-abuse. If there is a disproportionate focus on the difficult times possibly that is simply a reflection of the fact that those are the times when writing becomes most helpful to me. I feel less like I need to write when life is ticking along in a more upbeat way!

So here are some positive thoughts for a Friday morning/lunchtime. First, since Sunday's episode and the feelings of fear that followed on Monday I have been feeling fine. I have been thinking about what happened and talking to friends about it. But I haven't been in a depressive state of mind. I've been frustrated and wanting for things to improve, but I haven't felt down or miserable. I have got on with work, I have got on with holiday (much needed couple of days off!!) and I have been seeing friends. Life has been 'normal' (a word that doesn't really do justice to anything but is a useful word for these purposes!)

Second, I have been thinking about what happened on Sunday and I am actually seeing it in a positive light. The reason it scared me so much was because it was new. It was not an experience that I have had before. And it seemed to come a bit out of the blue. But what underpinned it was a sense of frustration with the depression and a drive to want to get better. Earlier in the year I wanted to be gone. I wanted to hurt myself by poisoning myself so that I would switch off. I was giving up. What happened on Sunday was definitely not giving up! I didn't want to hurt myself, I wanted to hurt the depression. Now, while what I did may have been as effective as trepanning to deal with a headache, the motivation was actually quite positive: I want to be better.

Third positive thought is this: I know that it was a daft thing to do! I know that beating myself up was a destructive and counter-productive thing to do. But I can see that. It took me a good few weeks after my overdose in June to actually be able to realise it had not been a good thing and to get to a point where I was able to thank my friend for stopping me from killing myself. Almost immediately on Sunday I realised that what had happened was daft.

Which leaves me with this thought for the weekend: Sunday, for me, was another marker. It's another step along the route to getting better. This one had a much better underlying motivation than the overdose ever did. And fundamentally it means that I am not giving up. I can look on it in a positive light and see the good things that may come out of it. And I can also see it for what it was and I have absolutely no wish to do that again!

The journey that I am on at the moment is unpredictable. As is life generally! But I do finally feel that I am going in the right direction. Even if I still have further to go.

Under-estimating people

During this recovery process I have written a lot about trying to get other people to understand what is going on inside my head. I have written about being misunderstood. I have also written about opening up to people and trying to be honest and actually talking and telling people what is going on. For every post about how I feel and what is happening with me there is usually some comment about how I think other people see me.

 

When I started writing this blog I had in mind that at some point I might ask one of my close friends to write something as well. I may still do that. Because I think that as hard as it is for an individual to experience and live through depression, it can be equally frustrating, worrying and upsetting for the people around them. For their family and friends.

 

I am incredibly lucky in the friends that I have. Many people have told me that when you go through something like this, and when you start bearing your soul and being honest about what is going on with you, you find out who your real friends are. You discover the ones who actually care about you regardless of what you do. And there is a lot of truth in that. But I frequently find it hard to believe that they are still there.

 

I suppose in someways I have grossly under-estimated my closest friends. I have been so afraid of what is going on with me for so long that I find it hard to think that they will accept it. I remember telling one of my friends when I was 16 that I was petrified that I was becoming like my grandmother. Depression has always scared me. I didn't understand what was going on in my own head. I was scared of myself. So I assumed everyone else would be too. I felt I was a failure and that I was letting everyone down. I thought that if I told other people they would know that I was letting them down as well and they would be disappointed in me.

 

Even now - 12 years on - I still get moments where I am afraid that I am letting people down. What happened this Sunday got me thinking again. I was afraid to tell people. It was so scary and out of the blue that I thought everyone else would be scared as well. And I felt like I had failed - a new problem had come along that I hadn't foreseen and I wasn't able to deal with. I thought all my friends would feel like I had failed them too. They have stood by me through so much and yet another problem had come up; Louisa still wasn't better.

 

But my friends haven't gone anywhere. They're still here. They have enabled me to talk about all of this and to feel less afraid of what is going on. They may not understand all the inner workings of my head, but they have shown me that they don't need to. And I have finally realised that as much as they may sometimes misunderstand the nuances or not know exactly how my mind works, they know me well enough that they don't have to understand absolutely everything. They still care regardless. And that is the most comforting thing in the world.

 

I know that I have under-estimated a lot of people for a long time. For that I am sorry. And I am very thankful for all the people who are with me every step of the way and helping me to feel less afraid and to know that I am not failing anyone.

Anger and fear

So yesterday's post was written with a certain amount of levity. Really it had to be. I was incredibly scared about what happened and so the only way that I could deal with it was to make light of it. But today I feel I need to tackle it head on.

There are certain things that I don't write about in this blog. Details of my life that involve other people are generally avoided. It isn't fair for me to write about others if they don't have a chance to edit or comment. But I do try to give as honest an account as I can of what I am going through and what I experience. And so here is my attempt to explain yesterday and how it has left me feeling today.

I am not by nature a violent person. I don't like arguments with anyone. Last week I had a couple of spats with some friends and it left me feeling rubbish. I don't believe in violence as a solution to anything and am a pacifist to an almost pedantic degree.

So when I found myself punching myself in the head last night it was not usual. My head is still hurting now. There are definitely bruises. I woke up this morning and felt like someone had beaten me up (which to be fair they had). I have not experienced that sort of outburst of anger in a very long time. Nor have I ever been that violent before towards myself or anyone else. Which has led me to try and understand what on earth I was doing. I think I was trying to beat up the depression, which I know will sound bizarre. But I can't think of any other way to describe what I was doing. The anger at what the depression has done to me over the past ten years or so took over. I had no control. I wanted to attack the depression. But in doing that I was attacking me.

Which leads to the 'fear' side of things. Today I have been scared. Incredibly scared of myself. Which is the worst kind of fear. Being scared of other people or substances is relatively easy to deal with. You distance yourself from them. I know one of my friends has a stash of codeine tablets because every time I have had problems with them I have given them to him so that they go away. They disappear. But you can't do that with yourself. When you are your own enemy, when you are harming yourself, you can't get away. You are trapped with the person who is hurting you. And, with an unpredictable outburst like yesterday, I don't know when she is going to do it again.

I have spent today terrified of what would happen once I was by myself again. Would the anger come back? Would I be able to control it? Should I be asking to stay with a friend? Should I even be letting myself come home alone? I even started to think that maybe I should make a note on my computer of who I wanted to inherit different things in the event that I accidentally seriously hurt myself. Who would have my guitar, my music, my books? I was so afraid of myself that I was making contingency plans.

Now the anger that came out yesterday has always been there on the horizon while I have been recovering and writing. Thinking back to things I have said or written I can see that. The frustration that I have been feeling. The impatience. The resentment about the impact that depression has had on my relationships, my friendships, my work, my life. The anger has always been there in the background. But now suddenly it is centre-stage. And it is scary.

But after an hour of sitting on my sofa scared and alone this evening I took a decision. I'm not going to let it beat me. I am not going to let the anger hurt me. It needs to come out somehow. (I expect some more AC/DC and Guns n Roses are likely to be sung at full volume in the near future!) But I am not going to let the anger get me. Because if it does then the depression is getting me at the final hurdle.

I am scared. I would hazard a guess that anyone who has ever hurt themselves is scared. For me it felt like the oddest and most unnatural thing to do, even though I couldn't stop it. But I know that I'm not alone in this. I know that it happens. It is another facet of depression and anxiety. It doesn't happen to everyone, but it does happen to some people, and it is a part of my experience.

Something I found useful today was the following booklet on the mind website: http://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/self-harm. It has information about self-harm and also advice for those who have friends or family who self-harm. I hope others find it helpful as well.



Why I should live in a flat with carpets

There are two topics which come up quite frequently in what I write: patience and frustration. This evening I regret to say frustration won against patience. And it won in a quite different way to how it has in the recent past.

Historically when I have felt desperate I have resorted to alcohol and/or codeine. Those were always my substances of choice to abuse. Thankfully the wish to take things in order to pass out has gone. It has been a while since I have wanted to just pass out and not care about the consequences. And the feeling that I have now is not really best described as desperation. I'm not desperate anymore. Now I'm just cross.

I feel so much better than I did 5 months ago. Which I am very thankful for. But I am still having to work at it. I still have thoughts that come into my head which some of my friends correctly describe as 'bollocks'. I still have to work hard fighting those thoughts. And some of those thoughts have been in my head for a very long time and so I have accepted them as true. The most potent and critical thought for today's purposes being that people do not like to be around me and do not want to be around me.

And I know that that thought is wrong. I can see that there are myriad examples of why it is wrong. I can have my friends telling me it is bollocks. But I can't get it out of my head. And that frustrates me so much.

And so tonight, in a childlike attempt to get the thought out of my head, I thumped my head against the door. I punched the wall several times. Slammed myself at the door frame repeatedly. I then slapped myself so hard around the face that my ear rang. And to top it off once I had collapsed on the floor, I punched my head into the floor.

I was that frustrated. I just wanted to knock the depression out of me.

Now I do not recommend this as a course of action for anyone to take. Not least because my head now hurts and I am sincerely hoping the headache goes so that I can sleep. But I am writing this because I want to try and get across the sense of frustration that the lingering depression causes me to feel. The irritation when your brain comes up with bollocks and you can't dislodge it. The anger at having something else in your mind affecting how you think about things and just wanting it out. And that frustration and anger can lead to you doing some pretty daft things.

I am lucky. I actually told a friend what was going on and they didn't respond as if I was nuts. I rang the Samaritans and they listened and were understanding of how frustrated I am feeling at the moment. I have lifelines which I am able to use to calm me down. But I also think I might invest in some more bits of carpet for my wooden floor.

Out of sight, out of mind

There are various ways that I have described my recovery from depression. It is like a journey. Or an exponential curve on a graph. Or I talk in percentages. I use all these descriptions because I want to try and explain that there are gradients or stages or steps that I am going through. It is not a recovery which goes from one day being depressed to the next being cured and better. It is all on a sliding scale. Or at least for me it is.

The stage that I have currently reached is good. It is also exciting. The majority of the time I feel fine and I am getting on with life. I am back to work full time. I can spend evenings by myself and chill out by myself again. I am going out. I am living. All of which is fantastic and I really enjoy! And occasionally, maybe once a week or so, I can feel myself dipping a bit and going towards a depressive or anxious way of thinking. But generally I notice it, I pay attention to it, and I do something about it. And the dips are now matters of hours rather than days.

What I have noticed is that the dips tend to happen when I'm tired. And I think the reason for this is that the dips happen when I lose concentration.

You see while I am living a full life again, I am also still having to keep an eye on myself 24/7. I have lots of lovely friends and a supportive family who do what they can for me, but at the end of the day the buck stops with me. I'm single and I live by myself. I am my support at home. I am my own full time carer. I may be doing a lot on the outside and appear fine and normal to everyone else, but I am also constantly keeping an eye on myself. If I feel my thoughts starting to become negative I am the one who challenges them and sorts them out. In terms of processing what's happened in my past I am the one going back over those highly charged emotional experiences. No one can do that for me. And I am doing it almost all of the time.

Now this doesn't mean I am not grateful for the lovely wonderful people who are supporting me. There are times when it does all get a bit too much for me. If I get incredibly tired then I need support, as at those points I find it hard to look after myself. If something happens which would make anyone angry and upset then that can be a bit too much for me at the moment, and so again I need to reach out to people. And so many people have been so generous with their time and affection. I am continually overwhelmed by the people who want to be there for me.

But the really exhausting part at the moment is not the flash points, but the day-in-day-out minute by minute constant supervision of myself. And at the moment it is something that I need to do to look after myself. I am sure over time it will become less. But at the moment it is like a ticker tape constantly going in my mind all of the time. And as I've written about before, emotional things like this are more exhausting than I had ever let myself realise!

The other challenge of being at this stage is that because I look perfectly well to everyone else most of the time they appear to forget that there is anything wrong. I don't blame them for this. There are no outward manifestations of the depression. The tears are less, and I look less like a sleep-deprived zombie! But it does mean that I feel that I have to remind people that I am still exhausted because I am actually still recovering. I'm still not quite there yet. I still need time. The challenge of recognising that something is still wrong rears its ugly head once more!

And it's a difficult balance - I want people to treat me as me, not as a depressed person. I like the feeling of being back being myself. Doing work is fantastic and I enjoy it. Being out and chatting to my friends and the focus not being my depression is great! But at the same time I have to sometimes remember to rein myself in a bit. Or to remind other people. I have to keep that close eye on myself. At least for the moment.

Even if other people can't see what is going on any more, I need to occasionally look in the mirror and remind myself. It may be out of sight to most other people, but I need to keep it in mind.

There's still a little way to go. I'm not done yet! But I have every hope that at some point, hopefully not too far away, I will be.

In an ideal world

The ideal situation for me right now would be this. Everything, but me, would pause. And while everything was paused I would sit and think and work my way through how I am going to approach my life differently. How I am going to be myself. What things actually matter to me. What opinions I actually have about various things. I would use the time to form myself, to be content with who I am, not to dwell on the past but to actually learn from it and work out what I want to stay the same and what to change.

 

And I would take as long as I needed to piece all of that together. To work out how I want things to be going forwards. How I want to behave. I would take the time to challenge and remove all of the depressive thoughts and feelings that have accumulated over the past ten years and that have become second nature. All those thoughts and instinctive reactions which I actually detest.

 

And then, when I was done, I would press go again. I would be able to be myself in the world as I want to be. And if it upset people I would be ok with that, because I would know that I was at least being true to myself and my beliefs. And if I felt fed up about something I would know that I was fed up because it made complete sense to be fed up about a certain situation. I wouldn't have my perfectly normal feelings hijacked by the depression, because I would have dealt with it. I would be able to trust my feelings.

 

Unfortunately, that isn't how life works. Life keeps going around me.

 

So I do, or attempt to do, everything that is set out above. I try my hardest to fight and deal with the depression and the frustration and the anger. But I also have to live life at the same time. I have to encounter everything that anyone else encounters along the way: love, anger, disappointment, fear, friendships, arguments. Just every day life. The world doesn't stop while I sort myself out. It throws things at me. Some derail me more than others. Thankfully things are derailing me less. But it still means that when those things happen it can set me back. I can overreact. I tend to feel them more keenly.

 

Everything I am is on my sleeve at the moment. All of my emotions and experiences are exposed and raw. And living life with that is exhausting, unpredictable, and at times deeply emotionally draining.

 

Yes, I can handle life. Yes, I'm getting better. But I'm still learning so much about myself that normal everyday experiences almost become more important and more significant. Because those everyday things are just as much about me sorting myself out as they are about the experience itself.

 

Life goes on. There is no pause button. I have to walk on the broken leg. And sometimes it hurts.

Frustration

It has been pointed out to me that my previous post possibly came across as rather more aggressive and pointed than I had intended it to!

By way of clarification, when I talk about being frustrated I recognise that the reasons for my frustration may be unjustified and/or entirely unsubstantiated. My intention is never to criticise any other individual. My writing very much reflects what is going on in my head, which at some points in time may be entirely irrational. Especially when I am going through a patch where I feel that people don't understand me. This doesn't mean people don't understand me: it is simply a matter of how I perceive the situation I find myself in.

To anyone who may have been hurt by anything I have written I am truly sorry.

Fine lines and how nothing is 'perfect'

I haven't written for a while. The simple reason is that I haven't really felt that I have had anything useful or interesting to write! I have been feeling a lot better and just getting on with day to day life comfortable in my own skin. I might be wrong but I think posts saying 'this morning I got up and went to work and had a coffee etc.' aren't exactly entertaining or enlightening!! So quietness on my part is a good thing!

But over the past few days something has come up which I think it is important to write about.

I am a forceful advocate of the view that if you have depression you should try talking to someone, anyone, to help you to deal with it. My opinion remains the same - if you are in a very dark place then reaching out to someone who can give you perspective is important and can be life saving. It also helps you to engage with your feelings and emotions.

But I now feel that I need to place a caveat on that view. No situation or process is ever perfect. There will always be room for change and/or improvement.

So here is the imperfection of talking to people when you are depressed, or more to the point when you are recovering from being depressed:-

I have spoken to a lot of people; professionals, friends, family, acquaintances, strangers. I have opened up in order to work out what I think and feel. But no other person can ever properly understand what is going on in the mind of another person. Things move on over time, because we all encounter experiences day to day, or even minute to minute, that subtly alter how we approach life. Yes, we probably all have fundamental beliefs, but there are those gray areas that can change over time. Think about a song that you have heard which initially you hate and then grow to love, or vice-versa. Most people's views about things are not set in stone.

Now, as I recover from depression (and I am using the word recover because my own view is that that is what is going on) my views and opinions are subtly shifting. The way that I think about things is changing. Possibly faster than it usually would because there is a lot that I am re-assessing in one go. The nature of the illness is that it clouds how you think and causes you to be incredibly negative. So as that negativity goes it alters how I think. Similarly how I feel about things is changing, sometimes at quite a pace. And trust me, I am not going to pretend for a second that this development is anything other than a very good thing!!

But what it does mean is that people can't second guess how I think or feel as readily as maybe they assume they can. And this is where talking to people has started to present some real challenges. People I talk to (frequently people who are close to me) make assumptions as to what I must be thinking or feeling, or what must be going on with me, and what I want out of my life. Some of them are open-minded enough to realise that how I am approaching things has changed. But others are still telling me that 'of course [I] feel like X' (when in actual fact I don't!), and are running on a two month old view of how I am.

I am changing, but people's attitudes about me aren't keeping pace. Which is understandable: I'm with myself the whole time, whereas they see me at weekly or fortnightly intervals so they don't see the change happening.

But it is frustrating for me. I am enjoying getting better and feeling better! Being treated or talked to as if I were in the place I was a few months back makes me feel like I am being pulled back to that. I want to move forward with my life, and leave the reflection on the past to the quiet hour that I have with my therapist each week. I am not in the same place I was (thankfully!).

So maybe the caveat to talking is this: it has to be talking on your terms and to benefit you. At a certain point I have found that I have to take things other people say with a substantial pinch of salt. When other people tell me that I 'must' feel or think a certain thing I have to be brave enough either to tell them that they are wrong or to let it slide. I have to pick and choose what I want to take on board and what I don't. And when I feel like someone is mentally treading on my toes I need to step away.

Depression and getting over depression is a complicated thing. To be fair no one ever told me that it would be easy! You have to be open to the problem and protect yourself at the same time. It's all a matter of balance. But luckily for me I feel like I am getting there. Even if someone treads on my toes every now and again and makes me wince.

Post-script (on life in general rather than depression!): I think it is very dangerous to ever assume that you know what someone thinks whether that person has depression or not. If you don't know then, as far as I'm concerned, it is much better to ask them than to guess. We're all different, which is what makes life so interesting!

Patience

As anyone who knows me would tell you I'm not the most patient person in the world! In fact you don't need to ask someone who knows me, someone who has been around me for 15 minutes could tell you that I'm not the most patient person!! I tend to manage to be kind and patient with others. But when it comes to me or my life I want things to be sorted out as soon as possible. I am not good at allowing myself time.

 

We are now into November. And I am frustrated. I am frustrated that I am not 100% (or let's say 95%) all the time. Today I am calm and I am fine and feeling like myself (which is great and I am definitely enjoying!!). But generally speaking in a week I will have 5 good days, 1 bad day and 1 recovery day after the bad day. This seems to roughly reflect the pattern I am going through.

 

Objectively speaking this means that actually I am only having 1 day a week where I am feeling depressed or seriously anxious. (I hope the mathematicians out there would agree that this is about 14.3% of the time.) Compared to how I was in July when I was depressed and anxious every day (I can reliably calculate that as 100% of the time!) I know that this is a clear improvement.

 

But I'm not done yet! I am not happy that there is that 1 day!!

 

Ultimately I want to feel better at least 95% of the time. And it isn't because I am overly ambitious (which I am but that isn't the reason). And it isn't because I feel that I need to be better to make my family and/or friends happy. I want to feel better because it is so much nicer than feeling depressed!

 

I've written about how being depressed feels, about how it makes me feel lonely, it distances me from people, and it causes me to act in ways that in hindsight I regret. Having now had a serious taste of what I am like without the depression I want to be without it all the time!

 

And this desire coupled with the impatience means that while I am only 4 months into properly sorting all of this stuff out, I still want to get it sorted as soon as possible.

 

Other people are very kind. They point out to me that getting from 100% to 14.3% in 4 months is astonishing, especially given that I'm working to deal with something that has been going on for over a decade. Working my way through everything that has happen and learning how to be myself without depression was never going to happen overnight, or in a month, and will take time.

 

But the wish to feel better does mean that when I do have a down day it hits me pretty hard. Fundamentally because I don't want to have a down day! I hate the down days. And I hate how the depression has impacted on my life. Yes, I accept the impact it has had, but that doesn't mean that I am happy about it!!

 

And so maybe the impatience doesn't help me because it means that those days do feel pretty awful at the moment. But I also know that I am very lucky to have this drive, and that if I didn't I wouldn't have got to where I am in 4 months. Or have the drive to keep going to get that 14.3% even lower.

 

Facing up to everything in June/July was definitely the hardest and scariest thing I have ever done in my life. I also now know that it was definitely the most important thing. And so I remain very firmly of the view that anyone else suffering should at least consider trying to talk to someone - even if it is just one person who you feel able to trust.

 

In my experience it has quite literally changed my life. By a whole 85.7%!

 

Impaired judgment

When you find out (and/or accept and admit) that you have depression and anxiety it can be a relief. You can finally understand why you were feeling so awful all the time, and the incessant worrying has a reason. These are both quite comforting things. You know that you are not just 'nuts'. You're poorly.

 

But I am finding that there is another side to it. As I was writing yesterday, as I feel progressively better it feels like a veil has been lifted and I can suddenly see what a difference being unwell has made to my outlook on life. This is both a welcome discovery and an unsettling one. Things feel very different now. In my case my relationships with some people feel very different. And it is making me look back and question what has been going on. I am looking back on events that have happened in an entirely different light. And it is making me question what I actually thought and felt at the time. And question how much of what I thought and felt was 'genuine' me and how much was caused by the depression and the anxiety.

 

The feeling that something else has had a strong influence on your decisions and actions is a disturbing one. Not knowing the limits of that influence is also troubling.

 

I know that I can't go back and do things again. The exercise that I am now undertaking is more one of rebuilding. But what makes this exercise tricky is that I can't have a 'fresh start' with things. I have to live with the consequences of what happened while I was depressed and at my lowest. I have to accept the things that I did and said. I can't take any of it back and I can't 'blame' the depression for all of it. I just have to build on what I have left. And hope that the depression and the way that I acted while it had a hold of me hasn't done too much damage.

 

I am frequently informed that people who actually matter will understand this and forgive me for things I have said and done. I sincerely hope that that is true.

 

 

We're not in Kansas anymore...

When you are feeling down and depressed it is very difficult to imagine how you would feel if you weren't down and depressed. It's like when you have a bad bout of the flu and you find it difficult to remember what it was like to be able to breathe without it being a struggle and to think straight without your sinuses being clogged up.

Then there's that feeling that you have when the flu is gone and you feel better. That absence of feeling rubbish and feeling normal is great. But it's difficult to put your finger on because in someways it's not a matter of feeling better, it's the fact that you no longer feel ill. The absence of feeling rubbish. And you're back to normality.

I have written about how I don't feel that I have been myself and the fact that I feel like there is a mask between me and other people. Because of the depression I was behaving and being a person that I considered to be a very poor caricature of myself. And it frustrated me beyond belief. I was so concerned about the fact that other people weren't seeing me for the person that I actually am. And the wonderful thing about feeling better and being honest with people (and writing this blog!) is that people are now seeing the 'real' me.

But what I didn't anticipate is how much feeling better would change how I look at everything. I've tried to describe before how it feels to be getting better. It is difficult to describe because it is the absence of something that has been in the way. It is like there have been road works going on non-stop and now there is that silence after they have stopped. I think it is also like when you have a computer on constantly and you get used the fans buzzing, but then you switch it off and you are suddenly aware that a sound you got used to is gone. Well that's what's going on with me at the moment.

As part of my depression I have had a lot of anxiety. And by anxiety I don't mean 'worrying'. Everyone worries about things now and again, but you tend to think of something that worries you, do something about it or if you can't just put it to the back of your mind, and then get on with things. Sometimes bigger worries stick around and mean that you are preoccupied for most of the day. But for most people (as I understand) they pass. For me for at least the past two years (possibly longer I can't quite place it but I am certain it was in play two years ago) I have been preoccupied and anxious almost every single day. It has distracted me from my work. It has stopped me doing things I would like to do, or saying things I would like to say. It has been like a constant self-critical noise murmuring in the back of my head the whole time. A constant doubt about every decision I make and every situation I am in.

And now it is stopping!

The fact that it is stopping is wonderful. Don't get me wrong! But it is also a bit confusing. That buzzing has been there for a very long time, and I had got used to it. And life without it is exciting but all a bit new!

I also find that there are some things that have happened in the past couple of years and now when I look back I'm a bit confused as to how much the anxiety was affecting my outlook then. It is like someone has suddenly taken a pair of glasses off my face while saying 'hang on this is the wrong prescription'. Life all looks a little bit different.

Now I know that this might sound a bit like the 'other room' feeling that I've talked about before. That sense that I am in a parallel universe. But this time it's not. This is a positive feeling. It is a feeling of having the wool lifted from my eyes. Of having a wall that was in the way knocked down. Of actually being comfortable and calm. And it is an amazing feeling!!!

It's just a very new feeling, and I anticipate it is going to take me a little while to get used to it!

Music

There are things that help with depression which make sense. Medication (for those who are able to take it and for whom it doesn't have horrible side effects) obviously makes sense. The most common drugs cause more 'happy hormones' to be absorbed in the synapses of your brain and therefore your mood goes up (I'm not a GP or chemist so I'm giving a very rough explanation of what goes on!).

 

Similarly the fact that therapy helps makes sense. Dealing with past traumas that you didn't properly deal with at the time and talking through how your brain works so that you have a better understanding of yourself logically should help. And for me I know that it does help.

 

Talking to friends helps. Again, this makes sense - spending time with people who like to be around me generally makes me feel better! Realising that worries I have are not unusual helps. And talking about how rubbish some things have been actually gives me perspective.

 

But the thing which I have never particularly been able to understand is why music helps as much as it does.

 

I used to think that music helped because when I'm performing I can get out a whole load of mixed emotions in one go. If I'm playing violin or piano those emotions are wordless, and incredibly powerful. When I'm singing, even if it's other people's lyrics, it helps me to express myself in a way that I never can when I am simply talking to people. I've had plenty of people who consider that I have a 'big voice' for a 'small person'. Maybe it's just that I have a lot that I channel when I'm singing! It is fantastically cathartic.

 

But the interesting bit, and the bit that I don't quite understand, is that listening to music helps as well. In particular live music.

 

I've been very lucky over the past couple of weeks (and months and years) in that I've been able to go to some really good live gigs. And the effect is always the same. Afterwards I feel much more myself. I feel grounded and energised at the same time. Even if while I've been at the gig my mind has touched on things that have upset me or that I feel uncomfortable and unsure about, I still come out the other end feeling better. During one of the best gigs that I went to this year I spent a good patch of it concerned that I was 'unwanted' but it didn't upset me nearly as much as those thoughts usually would. The music kept me safe.

 

Now I am a fairly rational and logical person. I like to understand things. And the effect that music has I don't understand! But I think that it is something that I can be happy not understanding simply because it is that powerful and that effective that I'm happy just to 'go with the flow'.

 

I don't know whether this is something that works for anyone else. The size of the audiences when I go to gigs would suggest that it does! But I find the effect that music has fascinating and just a bit magical.